


Spellbound

by arcanemoody



Category: Gotham (TV), I Married a Witch (1942)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Awkward Flirting, Fire, First Meetings, I Married a Witch AU, Love at First Sight, M/M, Murder, Negotiations, Post-Episode: s03e02 Burn the Witch, Season/Series 03, Strained Friendships, Torture, Witchy Hijinks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:07:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28786182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanemoody/pseuds/arcanemoody
Summary: Just as he is about to be hanged for witchcraft by the township of Gotham, the centuries-old apothecary known as Edward casts a curse on the family of his accuser, dooming the future generations to blight and misery borne of love. Freed from his earthly prison more than three centuries later, Edward sets his sights on the family's most recent descendant: mayoral candidate Oswald Cobblepot.
Relationships: Oswald Cobblepot/Edward Nygma
Comments: 33
Kudos: 91





	1. Edward

**Author's Note:**

  * For [connerluthorkent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/connerluthorkent/gifts).



> A shorter version of this story is set to appear in the Nygmobblepot Haven "alternate universe" zine. The idea was originally conceived while watching the movie with connerluthorkent and Basilintime in Kosmi. I hope you like it!

**1692**

_  
"And may this be the fate of all witches who attempt to work their evil magic within the township limits of Gotham. Mayest thou and thy kind be condemned forever to darkness... never to return."_

_Edward tries to frown as his body is cut loose, stripped, and arranged on a pile of stones near the water. Sadly, not even rudimentary motor functions seem to want to cooperate… the broken neck likely has something to do with that. He remains peeved even as the flames reach his unperturbed nerve endings. Death, dis-corporation, whatever this may be, it’s inconvenient to sense flesh and sinew burning away and not be able to feel it. What ashes and chips of bone don't end up in the tributary connected to the river are hurriedly buried under a willow sapling at the base of the hill._

_“We do this to trap the witch in something living,” Judge Dumas cautions the mob. “If a significant enough part of him were to escape, he could be moved to wander.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _The task takes many hours and many pairs of hands, including the young denouncer, Josiah Van Dahl, who contemplates the ash and gore under his fingernails with unblinking Spaniel eyes. Rich or poor, man or child, everyone must work. Everyone must get their hands dirty._

 _Edward’s soul, meanwhile, is_ **_significantly moved_ ** _to wander; though bound to the natural elements of the township that soon grows into a city._

_His remains that make it to the river flow onward to the harbor, to be eaten by plankton and fish. He becomes a part of their gills their bones; mixes with blood and wastewater as those bones wear away in the fetid surf. He’s absorbed into the clouds in late winter and returns to the earth with Spring rain. This piece of Edward, now as much a part of the city itself, departs and returns time and again; more storied and sullied than before, up through the moist soil from which the tree draws sustenance, out to the leaves that convert the city’s polluted emissions to breathable oxygen._

_He makes Gotham better (as witches of his kind have for centuries) in waves and mist, longing for fiery rebirth…_

**Present Day**

_The mad scientist and the first of a new generation of Gothamites are running. Almost from the word ‘go.’ Their appearance on the road causes one car — an old Nova — to skid off the road and into the woods. Down the curve of eroded soil and polluted brambles, all greasing their path toward the clutch of trees on the edge of the creekbed._

_The car, decades old and held together with string and duct tape, explodes._

_The driver, arms broken and screaming, flails._

_The tree, grown strong and steadfast over three centuries,_ **_falls._ **

_Edward feels his soul pulled upward through the roots and soil as a mist; giddy with relief, the ecstasy of freedom after centuries of solitude._

_“...oh, dear… What is everywhere? And nowhere? Except where one is?”_

_His question, and subsequent laughter, echoes within the strong winds, whipped up by the smoke from the burning carriage._

_Edward floats hither and thither, through the woods and along the road. Past a throng of revelers at the cliffside, smelling of mead and moving in a gentle, collective sway. Dancing couples, necking couples, enmeshed and enthralled… It’s good to know few things have changed after hundreds of years._

_“How nice would it be to have lips,” he whispers to the wind. “To whisper lies, to breathe in smoke and fire… Why can’t I have lips, eyes, hair? When I am free for the first time in over three hundred years?”_

_Without eyes to see or lips to breathe, he bends his will to the direction of the breeze, following the siren song to the judge’s old manor house._

_There’s revel here, too. Boisterous with rage rather than lust, hunger sated with wrath and blood. Beyond the noise, his essence casts upon a lone man: the idol of the revelers’ jubilation stands apart, still as a statue in the damp grass. A curious figure, this one…sea glass pale eyes focused north, toward the woods, where the gallows once stood._

_His tears, the tight agony of his mouth speaks of a love drawn within himself, anchored by thorns. A love that brings pain and regret._

_“Oh…my.” Lips to breathe would do very little for him in this moment…_

_Edward feels moved to recall an old promise as he concentrates all his senses on this puzzle of a man: all Van Dahl heirs shall wed the wrong person, ask for love and receive loss._

_Josiah._

_Of course!_

_His young accuser had cut a similar figure: dark, near mute, always keen to linger around the “funny young apothecary” who studied dead animals and experimented with compounds no one could understand. Whose hazel eyes and dark curls gave him odd feelings that he called ‘witchcraft.’ Edward had cornered him in anger after the accusation was made public, keeping his tone whisper soft as if to drip honey: for what he had done – for betraying himself as well as Edward -- Josiah would never find love. All companionship henceforth would bring him blight and misery._

_Justice in the New World had great staying power; a witch’s justice more so._

_Edward continues to hover, amazed by how much he can see even without eyes: melancholy follows Josiah’s heir, flourished with bright rages and a deep kindness that belies his power. Edward lingers above and around him, absorbing, appalled at the swiftness with which he disappears into the horseless carriage waiting for him. It forces Edward to move quickly, relieved when a strong wind picks up and he is able to assemble loose branches into a broom along the path of the road._

_"Ash and hawthorne... I hope I thrive in this century as well as you have..."  
_ _  
_ _Newly in control of his movements, he steers the broom toward the center of the city, drawn to a magnificent green light, glowing as a beacon in the darkness._ __  
  
“The city has green fire!” he thinks, feeling his soul sing as it makes impact with the conflagration. “What magnificent witchcraft this is!”


	2. Oswald

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a [music edit](https://arcanemoody.tumblr.com/post/640876417438105600/you-came-along-from-out-of-nowhere-by-johnny).

The crowd loves Oswald; cheering and exalting him, rampage transformed to jubilation. It’s an addictive sensation even within the miserable heaviness that seeing Fish has left him with. He watches with a lump in his throat as Bullock takes witness accounts from the crowd and Jim rounds up the remaining “freaks” from Indian Hill; for his payday and a pat on the head from his former captain.

So much for Gotham’s white knight.

There is an ugliness to the scene that makes him abruptly eager to flee, walking briskly to the car and ordering Butch to drive.  
  
Traffic eventually stalls them in Midtown – a rogue lightning strike has hit the abandoned toy factory on Grundy and the streets are blocked off as firefighters work to contain the blaze. Oswald barely registers the inconvenience.  
  
“You all right back there?” Butch asks, turning to face his puzzled expression. “We’ve been sitting her for twenty minutes; you haven’t screeched once. If you were spitting tacks, I’d know you were okay.”  
  
“Thanks a _lot_ ,” he replies, weak even to his own ears.  
  
"What did she say to you?"  
  
"What makes you think she said anything?"  
  
"Every other time you two fought, you got the drop on her. If she had gotten the drop on you, I’d be escorting _her._ So, what happened?”

Even when his former patron had brought him to heal, she had never moved to perform the killing blow herself. In the old Gotham, run by complacent third generation patriarchs, fat with wealth built on someone else’s labor, the filthy business of torture and murder were delegated to middlemen and underlings. But Oswald thrilled in performing these tasks himself and, when Fish had come for him, he had pushed her from the tower without a second thought. Only for her to sneak up on him in the dark of night, distracted by the triumph of Galavan’s death and vindication for his mother. Without a sidearm and too shocked to even reach for the ceramic knife in his umbrella’s handle.

 _‘Because you are mine.’_ She’d said. And, for once, he knew that Fish had meant it.

He was a part of her, a thing that had loved her as a second mother, worshiped her as an acolyte, broken her heart; a thing that made her angry and let her down. A thing she could not kill, with everything between them. And, ultimately, a thing that could not kill her either. It wasn’t until she declared the mark that he had left on her, that he could really face the one she’d left on him…

He's not ready to face it.

And he’s certainly not going to talk to Butch about it.

He’s on the verge of lashing out that it’s none of his business when a distant voice diverts his attention…  
  
“Do you hear that?” he asks.  
  
“Hear what?”

…like an echo.  
  
“That! Someone’s… screaming?”

It’s not a scream. If pressed, he would say it’s barely a sound; a clarion call that he feels more than hears, a deep resonance sending chills over every inch of exposed skin.  
  
“No kidding. That fire’s two blocks long. I’d scream, too. Hey, where are you _going?_ ”  
  
Midtown’s industrial sector is a maze of arterial streets and lane-ways originally built into the city’s infrastructure to allow for “efficiency with neighboring endeavors” (i.e. larceny and smuggling). Finding a side door to the factory free of police barricades is easy – Oswald knows them all. The door handle is miraculously cool as he pushes it open, even as hot air from the burning upper floors assaults his face. 

Gathering his courage, he rushes inside.

“..hello?!” he shouts, wincing as acrid smoke fills his nostrils. “Is someone in here?”

 _“Good evening!”  
  
_“I heard screaming and I…” Words fail him. He has never run _toward_ screaming this way before. He wouldn’t have survived this long if he had. “Where are you?! Can you get out?”  
  
_“Here, Mr. Van Dahl.”_

“How…?” he sputters, eyes burning. “That’s not my name!”  
  
_“Is it not? My apologies.”  
  
_“Where are you? I can't see!”  
  
_“Can’t you? I’m right in front of you. Hello!”  
  
_“Oh!” Oswald stumbles as he collides with a taller figure in the dark. He clutches his nose from where it bumped into the stranger’s collarbone, looks up to apologize… then abruptly averts his gaze. “Oh hell!”  
  
The man the inexplicably whimsical voice is attached to… _is completely naked._ Oswald turns around quickly, blanching at how close the billowing smoke is to the door but unable to look anywhere else.

“Is something wrong?”  
  
“You might want to put something on!”  
  
“Oh, okay! What would you like me to put on?”  
  
“Something the flames won’t reach is probably best for you!”

He can hear the fire above them, ravaging the second floor. They’ve got maybe seconds before it reaches the ground floor.

“Okie-dokie. Let’s see, what do we have here...” he hums for an interminably long time. “All right! You can turn around now.” 

To Oswald’s relief, the stranger has found a long pea coat to cover his nudity. And some heeled boots. And a _full-length_ _mirror._ Which he is somehow able to gaze into through the billowing smoke.

"Oh my! Was I this tall before? I can’t recall but I kind of like it… The knees bend too much. Oh look!” he shouts, wrapping too-long arms around Oswald’s shoulders and crushing him back against his sternum. “You fit right against my heart!"

"Unhand me, you lunatic! The whole place is going to collapse! We have to go!”  
  
“Oh, brown hair! That’s interesting,” he says, fingers combing through short curls. “I was ginger before… but the neighbors did say that was a bad omen. Should I try something else?”

“Come on!” he tugs at the taller man forcefully, finally grabbing his hand as he vaults toward the door; stopping short as the hallway ceiling collapses in front of them, blocking their escape. “Oh god…”  
  
“Is something wrong?” asks, unperturbed, swinging their joined hands.  
  
Rage sparks coolly in his chest, dueling with hot adrenaline.  
  
“Yes… actually. You see that door is now a _WALL!_ ”  
  
“Oh,” the stranger responds, unfazed. “Well, we could just exit through the privy. The window in there blew out ages ago."

“The _what_?”

If the stranger answers, his words are quickly drowned out by falling debris and by the pain that erupts throughout Oswald’s body as it’s dragged through broken glass and cement dust. The wool of the other man’s coat smells like a campfire as the two of them crawl out through the heat-warped window frame to the street, coughing raggedly. Long arms still are still wrapped around his shoulders and neck and he can’t shrug them off before they have a crowd immediately clamoring around them.

“He saved someone! Penguin saved someone!”

“The day before the election, too! That’s lucky, Mr. Cobblepot.” __  
  
“Is _that_ your name?!” the lanky figure clinging to his shoulders exclaims. “Mr. Cobblepot. My hero!”

Oswald viciously pushes him off to the paramedics advancing towards them, ignoring the grin from the uniformed officer and all but running back to the car.

“You make a new friend?” Butch smirks.

“Shut up and drive.”

“Sure thing. Homeward?"

Oswald starts to say 'yes.' Until he shoves his hands into his pocket and emerges with an unfamiliar business card: heavy stock, embossed with a pair of entwined sirens. The handwriting on the back is unmistakable.

“...no,” he coughs lightly, lungs still stung from the smoke. “Warehouse district. Then home.”

To his relief, Butch doesn’t pester him further. 


	3. Edward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edward's first encounter with the GCPD.

“Now, you’re sure that you’re not hurt? We can radio the ambulance to follow us to the station.”

“No, I feel quite well, thank you," Edward replies, seated in the open back of the gentleman's carriage. "Though I do seem to have misplaced my broom. I suppose that was lost in the fire?”

“Probably,” the gentleman in blue chuckles. “Your landlord’s insurance company can probably cover that along with everything else. Though I don’t know if renters’ insurance covers lightning strikes.”

“My sister-in-law’s didn’t,” the second gentleman in blue replies. “But I’m also pretty sure she torched the place herself. None of the other shops in the strip burned.”

“And it wasn’t even raining that night!"

Edward smiles, contemplating how to proceed. Eager to flee as he was when the flame revived him. He carefully shrugs out of the scratchy throw someone handed off to him shortly after his 'rescuer's' departure. 

“Sir? Given that my well-being is assured, am I free to go?”

“Not quite. We still need to take an official statement down at the station– with any luck, you’ll make the morning papers. You were just saved by our new mayor!”

The carriage door shuts without warning, making Edward flinch. He tests the handle, pushing lightly as his escorts take their seats at the front of the coach, the two of them separated by a sheet of glass and corrugated wire. 

“This… station,” Ed posits, testing the syllables. “Is it terribly far?”

“You haven’t been here very long, have you?”

“Three centuries or 45 minutes, depending on who you ask,” he replies, brightly.

"Funny. We're about a ten-minute drive from here. 'Might be a bit longer with the road closures."

"Oh my," Edward sighs, glancing at the stubborn door handle. That wouldn't do at all...

\--

"No worries. Once we're there, it won't take long. We might even get there in time to get you coffee from the break room. If you thought you were having a bad night before!"

"Chill, Lance. It's not half as burnt as the place we just left. Of course we could just try and get something to go on the way. 'You like Sundollar, man?"

Silence from the back seat.

"Sir?"

The uniformed officer looks back, through the barrier, popping on the overhead light to reveal an empty back seat. He swallowed; craned his head back and forth as he stared at the shredded vinyl with _no one_ sitting there...

"Lance?"

"Yeah?"

"Let's hit the Sirens instead. I'm going to need a drink to explain this one to Barnes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short bit this time! Apologies, y'all. The next chapter is much longer (and on the way)!


	4. Oswald

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oswald's rendezvous in the warehouse district.

Unlike many of the neighborhoods in Gotham, the “warehouse district’s” name was little more than a decade old.

After the War of 1812, the city’s aldermen had re-invested the vacant property along the river into several textile mills, water and later steam power driving the machines that turned roving into wool and cut the wool into bolts for the city’s haberdashers. As retail trends moved on with the rest of the region, the factories shut their doors one by one. Oswald could still smell the notes of ammonia from the textile dye long after the vats had dried up. Cheap warehousing had saved the area from blight, along with the families that utilized the space for moving contraband and concealing stolen vehicles. Lots were blocked off with corrugated fences, topped with razor wire and splattered with graffiti. The outer factory doors rarely latched without the help of a padlock and chain, leaving only those with a profession that warranted bold cutters to come and go as they pleased.

Oswald knows the door will already be open before he even touches the handle. The clue is in the designation stenciled just above the doorframe, just visible under the glow of a flickering lamp.

B-113.

_From one Arkham inmate to another._

Despite the mirth of her invitation, Barbara doesn’t look happy to see him when he walks through the door.

“It took you long enough.”

“There was a fire in Midtown,” he leans on cane as he moves towards her. “And, as you’ve no doubt parsed, it was a rather busy night before that.”

“Yeah, I figured your little ambush went over well. My plant didn’t confirm the drop until an hour ago.”

One of his revelers, then. Perhaps one of the ones who had lifted him on to their shoulders (to gain access to his coat pockets).

“This is a trade, I take it?”

“Can we call it a show of good will?” she asks, smiling through her persistent scowl.

“Absolutely not,” Oswald snorts. “You expect me to believe you inconvenienced yourself without a price in mind?”

“Fair enough. Your little bulldog has been busy. You know that or he would have come in with you.”

“The Sirens is already exempt from paying in because of Butch’s…indiscretion. You have your independence, Barbara.”

“Yeah, well I’d like to be exempt from the kid’s table as well.”

“You’re a fairly new player in this city’s underworld.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought we were forging a meritocracy here?" she says, her tone vacillating between tinkling bells and a jeweler's saw. "Forget seniority, I can give you information, resources, things you can actually use _and_ the smarts to be discerning… I’m an invaluable ally, Ozzie. You know that. And you like me!”

Oswald thinks about how Jim Gordon had been foolish to let her go. He’d been doubly foolish to drive Dr. Thompkins away. A man and his obsessions, soon parted from the things that were truly of value.

“And for the opportunity of displaying your… merits, you’re offering me _what_ exactly?”

“Door number 3,” she smiles, nodding over her shoulder towards one of the smaller warehouse units.

“I’m not going to find your paramour with a machine gun?”

“Snipers fire from a distance.”

“She was seven feet away the last time I saw her kill someone.”

“…and she used a knife. I know.” The instinctive recoil is… odd. As is the somber tone she turns on him. “You know she’s not here. Zsasz and your other reinforcements have the place surrounded. Radio them and see for yourself.”

Oswald opts to reach for the burner phone in his pocket instead of the radio (the channel that Butch has access to), satisfied when “I Love the Nightlife” echoes from a distant corner of the warehouse. Victor’s duster flutters dramatically as he steps out of the shadows, flanked by two similarly dressed henchwomen carrying their own sidearms (equally reassuring).

“We’re good, boss.”

He nods, returning his gaze to Barbara.

“Terms. _Now_. What exactly are you asking for?”

She beams, curls bouncing as she plucks another card from her clutch bag; the same silver color and embossed figure as the first one.

“You’re about to be elected mayor. Running this city on the books and off. That’s quite the load, even for the king of Gotham. Learn to delegate and let me be of use to you.”

If he were perhaps a little less exhausted, he might have appreciated the scene before him more: Barbara asking for the privilege of helping him, presumably under her partner’s nose given her absence.

“Dinner on Thursday?” he asks, taking the card from her gloved fingers.

“Your place or mine?”

“Janos Szabo’s. Eight o’ clock.”

“Leave the kids at home?” she asks, coyly.

“Sounds perfect. Zsasz?”

“Am I invited to dinner, too, boss?”

“We’ll see. Door number 3?”

The assassin nods affirmatively, then gestures for his lieutenants to stand on either side of Barbara. An informal safeguard.

“I like you, too, Ozzie!” she says, calling out to his retreating back.

He almost believes her.

\--

“She’s got a point about Butch, boss.”

He rolls his eyes. 

“Just watch the door, Victor.”

Oswald has no doubt Butch has been busy. The tentative truce they’ve nurtured over the last several months is strong enough but, he suspects, not made to last. His heartbreak over Tabitha’s indecision can’t match the grief the two of them left Oswald with. The murder of his mother while his oldest cohort watched in dazed stupefaction has left a scar he will not discuss and will never allow to heal. Cutting him out of the accountability loop had always been easy, even with so much history between them, and it is infinitely easier now.  
  
Oswald knows to his core that he is better off being his own confidante (having two of them hadn’t done Fish any good). Everything that had ever mattered, he had accomplished on his own: working his way back to Gotham, saving himself from Maroni’s car compactor and Galavan’s insidious long game.

The latter effort had shifted something inside him forever. Hiding out in a camper van in the woods, he’d cut the bullet out of his own shoulder, cauterizing the wound with the curve of a spoon heated with a butane torch. He had hastily sewn it up with dental floss and fishing line until he could make it to one of his back alley surgeons to replace his quick fix-it with proper sutures. He hadn’t committed an armed robbery since he was a teenager, but the pharmacist on Grundy had happily handed over a cache of antibiotics and other supplies. He hadn’t even needed to un-holster his gun, audacity helping him to pull through once again.  
  
That had been the start of it. Quickly followed by his torture at the hands of Hugo Strange while Gordon stood by, idle and unhelpful. While Oswald had kept silent on his part in their shared “crime"... that had cut him deeply, made it easier to fall down the well of Strange’s immersion and de-patterning “therapy.” He would always be grateful to his father for finding him. He’s almost more grateful to Grace, his hateful stepmother, for bringing him back to who he truly was.

Zsasz, ever the gentleman, holds the door open for him as he steps into a room the size of a steel shipping container.

Barbara’s “show of good will” has been trussed up with bondage rope and bungee cords and duct taped to a small chair in a seated position. The tweed coat and trousers are a modest color, the tie a mélange of paisley on a beige background. The bad taste denotes someone in middle management: an accountant or lawyer, someone whose anonymity is only assured so long as they're useful.   
  
“Hello,” he says, thrilled at how his voice echoes in the small space. “Mr. Leonard, is it?”  
  
The man in the burlap sack gasps, even with overlapping electrical tape putting pressure on his mouth and throat; trembling visibly. Oswald watches the pulse jump in his neck as he flicks open his butterfly knife.  
  
“Do you know who I am?”

The resulting scream rebounds off the walls, rattling the vents rattle above their heads.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The warehouse on the water Barbara directs Oswald to meet her at is the same warehouse from Season 3's finale _Heavydirtysoul_. If you look closely in the first shot, the faded signage on the side of the building says "hosiery" (textiles) and Bullock later says the section they're in has no loading dock, meaning it was likely a factory conversion.
> 
> B-113 was Oswald's prisoner number at Arkham.


	5. Edward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The vents rattle.

In a single night, rebirth, his heart’s desire for so long, has nearly matched the depth of Edward’s longing. Has nearly made the years of waiting worth it, to see the city — his prison — that he gave so much of himself to, against his will, vital and thriving; pulsing like a beating heart. 

The materials he scavenged from the carriage make for an adequate broom, but he has to drive his shoulder against the wind and the dizzying heights it pushes him towards; invigorated as he chases his quarry onward to the river’s edge.

The property the carriage finally arrives at is curious – too large for a manor home, fashioned with brick instead of wood, a flat tin roof with what he soon discovers to be a tin lined chimney. The earlier teleportation has left his new nerve endings aching and he resigns himself to the easiest port of entry short of climbing down to the front door.

The width of the chimney forces him to divest himself of the wool coat, sliding naked through the opening. He crawls on his hands and knees, careful to make no noise himself, towards the voices echoing below.

It helps that his rescuer’s voice is quite distinct, even if the mix of other voices therein are not. He soon finds himself facing a slatted opening only a little smaller than the chimney he slid down. The Van Dahl heir stands at attention before a bound man, eyes fierce…

“Do you know who I am?”

Edward watches the blade and feels himself pulled back through time…

_ Thomasin Kane, a young girl of fifteen, lives two doors down from the apothecary. Edward has met her on one other occasion, requesting a tincture for her mother’s headache. Her bright eyes are slate gray and puffy when he sees them again, the rest of her face a chalky white. An indiscretion has her frightened, terrified of exile, excommunication, and a dozen other possibilities that mean certain death for a young immigrant with no other connections in the New World. _

_ Edward soothes her as best he can, telling her riddles and letting her pet the rabbits he has recently built a hutch for in the side yard. She has options and he tries to account for all of them as he talks with her, quietly to prevent any neighbors from overhearing.  _

_ Ultimately, the two of them agree to a two-part arrangement, starting with her delivering half a pint of her urine for him to examine. She does not linger for long after she brings it, her pale features flushed red as the tailor’s son enters the shop upon her exiting. _

_ Josiah is friendly enough -- as friendly as the other children of the townspeople, all of whom are significantly more accommodating than their elders – and, however happy in appearance, his home life seems to have left him with a persistent sorrow. Edward supposes his conversation is a distraction, endeavoring to entertain if not console. _

_ After Thomasin’s departure, he allows the young man to observe as he injects one of the rabbits with a goosequill point of entry. Three days later, he allows him to observe again as he dissects the rabbit, observing the ovaries under a spyglass. He  _ **_is_ ** _ careful enough to dismiss him before delivering a tin of pennyroyal tea to Miss Kane’s door. _

_ Of that encounter, his most vivid memory is of Josiah’s eyes as he drew the blade down for dissection – pupils blown, breathless. The bliss of someone sensing the sublime joy of bloodshed, the power over life and death.  _

_ He wonders later, sitting on a bed of straw in the horse-stall converted to a makeshift gaol by the townsmen, if it is that power that led Josiah to betray his kindness. If so, a curse of misery born from passion is, perhaps, an inappropriate parry for his cold, short-lived sadism. But it will pay great dividends over the generations and, for that, Edward’s own sadism is almost as satisfied as if he plunged the knife into his chest himself... _

__

He watches through the slats as Josiah’s descendant brings the knife down on the bound man’s neck, purposely missing the carotid artery so that the man feels pain but fails to bleed out. 

He watches him swap blades with his squire to slice through the man’s clothing, lashing his upper torso with shallow wounds, so quick that the relief of shock never sets in. Finally, he disembowels him, laying his intestines in the man’s clothed lap as he continues to scream and choke on his own blood through the bag on his head. 

This wounded, vicious man with the grace of a dancer, the power of life and death in his hands, and a heart fierce and brave enough to enjoy it. 

For the first time since his rebirth, Edward feels his own heart beat, double-time, the errant sparks of misery and curses and dividends paid turn to ash, cast up and into the night, far from him, never to return. 

“What magnificent witchcraft… is  _ this _ .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course Edward falls in love at first sight of Oswald committing a grisly torture and murder. I'd expect nothing less from these two lovelies, in any time frame. This chapter is a bit early for the weekly updates -- I spent the weekend doing research, will probably call in sick to work with a migraine as I wrote this instead of sleeping.
> 
> Edward lived before the invention of modern factories, prisons, and law enforcement... but he invented the rabbit test 250 years before Friedman and Lapham. Clever lad.


	6. Oswald

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oswald returns home to find a visitor in his bed.

Oswald passes through the manor almost on autopilot, waiting for his heart to stop racing even as his brain powers down. Concentrates on taking one step after the other, afraid that if he stops, he'll fall asleep leaning on a door frame or propped up by an antique sideboard. 

Between Fish, Barbara, the crowd of admirers, the factory fire... somehow, the last three days have been more insane than the previous two years. Including the eight months he spent in an actual insane asylum.

He staggers upstairs in the dark, feeling for the light switch when he reaches his bedroom.  
  
“Hello, Mr. Cobblepot,” a familiar voice from his bed greets him.

Oswald gapes, dropping his cane as the man he saved from the fire on Grundy smiles broadly, tousled head resting against his pillows.

“How did you get in here?!” he shrieks, reaching for the holster where his knife and pistol should be (but suddenly, _aren’t_ ).

“Through the front door. I took a chance your bedroom would be the biggest one,” he replies.

“Y-you’re supposed to be at the hospital!”

“Oh, I didn’t need to go there. They going to take me to a station downtown at one point, but it seemed like a terrible bother and a waste of their time as well as my own. Do you believe in fate?”

“Didn’t need to--! Are you wearing my pajamas?”

"Yes,” the stranger sits up, looking almost pleased as the edge of the quilt falls to reveal his bare chest. “The top didn’t fit at all I'm afraid, and my ankles have quite the chill. I nearly re-sized them, but it's been a few centuries since my last transmogrification and being unable to change them back would just be ill-mannered..."

Oswald wrenches his eyes away, mentally grappling for an explanation. He wonders erroneously if this stranger in his bed – _his bed!_ – is one of the patients from Indian Hill. Maybe someone with Fish’s hypnosis abilities (explaining both how he found him, the strange anxiety he has around him now… and _where the hell his weapons are_ _)._

Or, given his familiarity with the location and layout of the manor, perhaps he’s just another stepsibling Oswald will have to dispatch via the butcher block and roasting pan.

“Do I look good enough to eat?”

“Excuse me?!” He winces as his voice breaks on the second syllable.

“Sorry. I’m a good reader. It’s a natural byproduct of suggestion. I’m quite susceptible myself – you could tell me to take a leap from that window ledge and I would probably do it,” he stands up, letting the coverlet drop to the floor.  
  
“No! _No!_ You’re already going to stretch out the seams! You don’t need to bleed on them too!”  
  
“Would you like me to wear something else?” he asks, long fingers already pushing at the waistband as Oswald rushes to stop him, gripping his wrists tightly.

Oswald sighs, even has his heart pounds in his chest; rage, shock, fatigue and the adrenaline crash of recent carnage grinding down all of the sharp edges in his brain to brittle points… Too long without sleep, too many high adrenaline events in one night.

He drops one of the stranger’s hands, keeping his hold on the other as he leads him out to the hallway.  
  
“Come on!”

\--

His father's workshop is just as he left it months before if a bit dusty. The smell of wool and cotton, machine oil from the former tailor’s sewing machine… all of it floods his senses, adding an air of magic to this most frustrating of activities. He grabs the ribbon tape from the shelf and motions for the stranger to step up on the wood block.  
  
"So, the Van Dahls kept up their trade all this time,” he smiles, holding out his arm as Oswald gestures with the tape. “Prudent for aristocracy in decline. Though your own surname would indicate artisanal work: Cobblepot."  
  
"It's my mother's name,” he says, lowering his arm and circling the tape to measure his waist.  
  
"Really? Same spelling?"  
  
"Your babbling is making it very difficult to measure you!"  
  
In all honesty, having this man on a pedestal, half-naked and close enough to touch and posed like an ornate centerpiece... is making it even more difficult.  
  
"My apologies. I haven't had anyone to talk to in a long time. Once I start, it's difficult to stop."

Oswald swallows, dropping the tape and turning to pick through several garments on the shelf. Jackets, shirts, trousers; bespoke items his father had finished and shelved long ago, each with a separate tag with their measurements listed: _‘For Charles.’ ‘For Oswald.’ ‘For Father_.’

He thinks of the card left on his seat.

“Does the name ‘Barbara Kean’ mean anything to you?”  
  
“Should it? I’ve yet to become familiar with too many names here apart from yours. But there were only five family names in residence when I was last here.”

And yet he had used his father’s name when he rescued him from the fire. On its face, it was easily obtained information -- Barbara knew it, Butch certainly knew it. Though the possibility of a plant or, dare he say, a honeypot would be a non-starter for both and anyone who had ever gotten close enough to him to speculate.

Oswald shakes his head, grabbing a jacket made for Charles, a shirt that was made for himself. The trousers made for his grandfather (the tallest of the three) will still be too short by half an inch or so but it’s the best they’ll be able to do without taking a seam-ripper to the cuffs.

“What’s your name anyway?” he asks, motioning for him to come down.

“I’ve had several over the centuries,” the stranger smiles as he steps down to the floor. “Before Judge Dumas hanged me, my name was Edward.”

Dumas. A Galavan connection, then. Oswald lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, feeling on more solid footing than before. ‘The enemy of my enemy.’ Finally, a game he was familiar with.

“Do you have any color preferences, Edward?”

“I quite like green, if that helps. Bright as gems or fresh moss.”  
  
“My father was a little more modest with his color selection. But I may be able to help you accessorize.”  
  
The smile he receives lights up the room.

\--

Together, they settle on a white cotton shirt, dark heritage wool jacket and matching trousers, Regent fit, Oxfords with dark socks to disguise the gap between the pants and the top of the shoes, a tie pin with matching cuff links in bright agate.

The agate brings out the modest forest green weave in the suit trousers and both are a compliment for the warm tones in his hair and eyes. Oswald watches as Edward braces his food against the cobbler bench to tie his laces.

“I used to watch the town’s women try over and over to pull green pigment from peat grass, pine needles, maple leaves. Hours they’d spend gathering, boiling, stealing scraps of kindling from their neighbors’ porches to keep the fire going. Only for it all to wash away as their garments dried. I never told them the secret.”

“What was the secret?” Oswald asks.  
  
“To boil the wool in onion skins then soak it in iron mordant,” Edward smiles. “It’s just as well. The only people trusted less in town than me were the iron worker and his family. I’m surprised they didn’t try to hang all of us.”

As Oswald replaces the extras, a hidden drawer in his father’s standing wardrobe reveals a cache of spectacles, many of the frames empty or broken. Long fingers reach over his shoulder, retrieving an undamaged pair as if by magic, slipping them onto his face before he can stop him.  
  
“Oh my! Perhaps my vision was damaged in the fire? Bodies are so frail. I’d forgotten – too many years without one I suppose! Do they suit me at all?”

Oswald swallows as he takes him in. The glasses change the shape of his guest’s face, making brown eyes somehow bigger and darker under the horned rim half frames. With the white shirt sans tie, top two buttons undone, and long line of the trousers accenting his height and slim build, he looks fit and carefree with a studious air. Like someone from a different age and place.  
  
“They’re…fine.”  
  
“Oh… oh good,” he sighs, turning toward the window. “And just in time to watch the sun rise! I’ll be able to pick out every color now.”  
  
“The _sunrise_?!” Oswald blurts out, shocked. “It can’t be that late! Can it?”  
  
A knock on the door answers his question, followed by Olga, carrying a silver tray of waffles and syrup.  
  
“Good…morning?” she stops short, spotting the stranger at the window.  
  
“Good morning!” Edward replies cheerily, vaulting over to lift the tea towel covering his toast. “Oh my! That smells wonderful!”  
  
“No time for that now,” Oswald moves to push past his housekeeper.

“What about…?” she nods towards their sharply dressed guest, already tucking into breakfast hungrily.  
  
For a long moment, he’s tempted to shout for Olga to call Jim Gordon. The officers had been headed for the station last night. If Edward is from Indian Hill, that’s another bounty and another favor he’ll owe him. Same if he’s an enemy of the Galavans.

And if his unexpected guest actually _is_ a witch…  
  
The thought makes Oswald smile.  
  
“Make some more waffles. Help him pick out a tie. And call Jim Gordon. Foundlings and damsels in distress are his specialty, after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Between Witch Ed and Oswald's inexperience/trust issues, I feel like this story will spend several chapters living up to the "awkward flirtations" tag. 
> 
> If you like what I do, please consider leaving a comment.


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